The Alien in the Room
by Mia Jones
Summary: Alex Krycek and Marita Covarrubias have been working together for five years now. Though they are deeply in love, and aware of each other's feelings, their relationship remains unresolved and full of sexual tension. Vaccines and Consortium politics aboud
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own the X-files or any of its characters, nor am I making any money off of this piece of writing. The X-files belongs to Chris Carter and the Fox network.

The Alien in the Room

Author's note: Read and review!

The rink smelled like the night before a heavy snow. It was an ominous smell, similar to the confusing whiffs of ozone that precedes a storm. Alex Krycek inhaled as deep as his lungs could draw. His body hovered over his skates. The air horn signaled the beginning of the period.

He was clever on the ice. Marita always enjoyed watching him, although she rarely had the time. She often couldn't tell if he was skating forwards or backwards, so quick and smooth were his powerful, lean legs. A flash of powdered ice sprayed from his skates after a quick stop. He switched directions, kept his position between the attacking man and the goal. When the puck began to skitter in every direction at once under the fast taps of the attacker's stick, Alex's lunged just as fast on the ice. He anticipated a move and dove forward. His stick slapped the puck away.

Marita felt an itch to clap for the good move, but she never allowed herself this little pleasure. There were a few young women in the empty stands. They tossed their ponytails and hollered their boyfriend's names through their cupped hands. Marita stood away from this cluster of chatting women. She leaned against the short wall of the rink with her gloved hands shoved into the pockets of her black overcoat. Alex flew by her. The wind from his speed was exhilarating and made her breathe faster, but she quickly calmed herself. She would have to calm him as well. Though his game was pleasing to watch, she had a job to do.

Alex was already skating towards the exit off the rink next to her when the period ended. His teammates jeered at him to get back on the ice, but he ignored them. There were still two periods left, yet he crouched on the bench anyway as he unlaced his skates.

"What's up," he asked in such a dead voice that it didn't sound like a question. Sometimes his cold manner startled Marita and though she would never admit it to herself, it made her heart sink sometimes. She had to bolster herself and so used an equally chilly tone.

"We have a live EBE to take care of."

Alex smirked as he tied the laces of his skates together. He hung the loop around his neck and held the blades of the skates against his chest.

"An Extraterrestrial Biological Entity," he said more out of amusement to himself than for anyone's edification. He whistled a low, mournful sound which echoed in the stadium. He grabbed his gear, put on his shoes, and followed Marita out the stadium.

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"Have you ever noticed how the Air Force always gets involved in these things?" Alex asked. He leaned his forehead against the glass partition. The medical equipment inside was enough to make him feel slightly queasy. Tubes and wires hooked to heart monitors flowed from the wrecked body. The thing blinked its flat, black eyes.

"Well, they've always had a rivalry going on with the CIA," Marita answered. "I've heard they keep a tally."

"Of what."

"Bodies. Crafts. Who knows."

"Well, this one they won't get to mark up for their score," Alex said as he cracked his knuckles through the thick, black leather of his gloves. Marita smiled as she followed him outside the observation room.

They were inside Johnson's Air Force Base. The empty potato fields of Idaho looked menacing in the dark. There was so much of nothing that surely there had to be something hiding from anyone's sight. The thought had made Alex shudder in the driver's seat of their rented Ford. He concentrated on the guard's station to calm himself. The flash of one of their many badges had given them access.

"What's your plan?" Marita asked.

Alex appeared to hesitate. He glanced at Marita and narrowed his sharp, green eyes. Her pulse hastened. She looked away to make sure he couldn't see her blush, but her own anger over such a silly reaction overcame her embarrassment. She glared back at him and reminded herself that his stare wasn't as sexual as she secretly wanted it to be.

"He doesn't trust me," she repeated in her mind. It was a daily mantra and moan.

"I'm going to take some samples from it first," Alex said after the long pause. He waited to see her reaction. Marita tried not to look too shocked. It was hard not to let her voice rise.

"For what?"

"None of your business."

Marita resisted the urge to slap him. Alex felt the tension and prepared to catch her strike, but her rage passed. Her blue eyes cleared and he felt her stinging loyalty. It made him want to grab her from behind and kiss the spot behind her ear he had been eyeing for weeks. But he chose to gather the scalpels and tissue sample containers from the pre-op room instead. He filled a flask with formaldehyde.

Marita and Alex each pulled on a rubber, bulky gas mask over their faces. Alex stuffed his leather gloves in the pocket of his black pea coat in exchange for a latex pair. They entered the air lock. Marita shut the door behind them. Air pressure fluctuated and made her eardrums ache as Alex opened the inner door. The gentle and constant blip of the EKG assured them that the alien was indeed alive.

Alex got to work. He scraped a few skin samples into a sterile tissue container. He punctured the skin with a hypodermic needle and filled a vial with the acidic, green blood. The creature stirred. Marita handed Alex a scalpel. She hated playing nurse or sidekick on their missions, but sometimes she would admit that Alex knew more about what he was doing than she did. If there was an officer to bribe with information exchange, that was her department. She was more of a diplomat. But Alex was a spook, a spy, an evidence eraser. She raised an eyebrow as she watched his confident skill with the equipment. He drew another vial of blood. He also seemed to have picked up a few medical skills recently, though Marita couldn't guess where. She sensed that he was taking her in his confidence at the moment and didn't want her to ask questions as he snapped off a few elongated fingers with the medical shears. The alien stirred, but was ultimately too weak to even cry out in pain. Of course, it did shriek in its native telepathy, but neither Marita nor Alex could sense this.

"Do you have enough?" Marita asked. But enough for what? That was the real question she wanted to ask. Alex silenced her with a look of his hard eyes. A bead of sweat ran down from his hairline and got lost in the concentrated folds of his forehead.

"Yeah," he said as he packed all the samples into a plastic bag he found discarded on the floor. "Let's get rid of it," he continued, his voice short and clipped.

"Will you do it," Marita asked. Her voice was soft and apologetic. Alex nodded. He withdrew the gun tucked away in its holster beneath his coat.

"Get out of here," he murmured. Marita left without argument. As soon as she shut the outer airlock, the quick snap of his silenced gun went off. He followed her soon after with the body wrapped in the plastic sheeting that had been the poor thing's bed. Alex hoisted the light weight over his shoulder and stalked down the hall without bothering to tell Marita to follow him.

Two rooms over, three guards watched a rerun episode of _Temptation Island_ on their little black and white TV with rabbit ears. They would later be tortured and executed for failing to guard the EBE.

Alex always skipped the last step of each flight of stairs and landed gracefully on the toes of his boots. Marita followed more slowly as she set the heel of her shoe down on each step with slow, eased movements. She was well practiced in the art of walking in heels down stairs, but that didn't mean she liked it. She sighed and wished for not the first time that she could be as free as her partner who could run and walk so much faster. Sometimes she felt like a cripple around him.

When they reached the basement, Alex shrugged the body off his shoulder. Marita opened the furnace door. The fire blazed. Without a second thought, Alex pushed the body through the small opening. He pushed the body's head completely inside the burning furnace with the heel of his boot. Marita handed him the plastic bag full of tissue samples she had been carrying. They left the base without incident, although the shot-like cracks of Marita's heels echoed down the halls.

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Five years ago, when Alex and Marita first began working together, a Consortium bureaucrat made a mistake. This clerk worked in a D.C. office, far removed from the Consortium New York Headquarters. He handled most of the daily accounting for the secretive society. When they needed new champagne glasses, he paid for them out of the institute's Swiss bank accounts. When the members wanted new limousines or Lincoln Town Cars, so they could be driven around the city in style, it was this bureaucrat who filled the orders and paid the registration fees. It was also this bureaucrat who handled their travel expenses. And five years ago, this bureaucrat mistakenly reserved only motel room for Alex and Marita's first assignment. Although Marita had written to this bureaucrat's office, the letter never actually made it to the correct desk. The mistake was engraved in the bureaucrat's records. So over the past five years, Alex and Marita faced the same scene at every motel they had stayed at.

"The reservation is under the name John Arntzen," Alex said to the attendant behind the desk. "Two rooms?"

"No sir, I just have a reservation for a single room with a double bed."

"I suppose the foldable cots are all packed away for the night," said Marita. It was her one line in this script. The manager scratched his flaking scalp and frowned at the clock, which read 2:36 am.

"Don't bother," Alex said finally. After the two of them left with their one key to the room, the night manager sighed and took a sip of his coffee. He hunkered down in his chair and fell asleep sitting up.

Marita and Alex had faced this same annoyance so many times that it stopped being annoying. They were used to it, like soldiers, they slept where they were ordered and made the best of it.

The room was like any motel room across America. The bible lay in the drawer under the boxy phone. The bed cover pattern looked like spilt paint of the neon spectrum. The carpets were clean though.

Marita and Alex dressed for bed. Years ago, Marita changed into a modest set of silk pajama's and matching robe in the bathroom while Alex put on his sweatpants and t-shirt in the room before she returned. Now they simply turned slightly away from each other, one on each side of the bed, and stripped. Marita made a point to never take a peak at Alex's lean body. Alex watched her with his peripheral vision. She put on a clean pair of silk panties, which Alex noted were somewhat diaphanous, but she always pulled on a light t-shirt that just covered the curve of her bum. The shirt had the faded logo of Harvard written in a small emblem just above her heart. The material had been washed so many times it was threadbare. Alex just pulled on a pair of sweats which had the tiny red star symbol of Moscow University.

While Marita washed her face and plucked her eyebrows, Alex had the habit of keeping watch out the window. He leaned against the wall with one finger dragging down the plastic rungs of the blinds.

"Check this out," he called over his shoulder. Marita tip-toed across the carpet. Her hair was pulled back with a headband. "It's our friends, Agents Mulder and Scully," Alex said in a low, deeply amused voice. Even Marita had to smile. The two agents looked so agitated. Mulder thrashed his arms and paced circles around Scully, who pivoted as she spoke with her partner.

"What a coincidence," said Marita.

Alex snorted at the joke. Although Mulder and Scully never knew it, Alex and Marita were usually one step ahead of the pair, and consequently they usually checked into their motel before the agents did. And more often than not, in these little towns on the empty plains there was only one decent motel to stay. Once Marita and Alex's room had been right next door to Mulder's, and he never knew.

"He can be very hard on her," Alex said.

"Mmm-hmmm," Marita answered as they continued to watch the duo.

"She does a lot for him, and I don't think he lets her know enough how much he appreciates it." Marita wondered if it was really Mulder and Scully Alex was talking about, but she didn't want to interrupt him during one of his more talkative moods.

"I'm sure she helps him because she has good reason."

"Why does she help him?"

"Because she loves him."

This shocked Alex back into silence. His eyes flickered between the calming agents outside and Marita, who never stopped watching the two agents standing around in the parking lot outside their motel room doors. Scully reached out and stroked Mulder's arm.

"She loves him?"

"Of course, why else would she follow him to these god forsaken places?"

Alex studied his knuckles for a minute. They were purpled with bruises.

"He's over the moon for her," he muttered eventually. Marita had to stop every muscle in her body from jumping into his arms. Her lips twitched to kiss him.

"Let's go to bed," she said instead as she pulled on the cord which flipped the blinds shut.

They burrowed beneath the thin, polyester covers. Years ago they had discovered it was just easier to spoon in a double bed than it was trying to stake out half the space and refrain from touching each other. Marita tucked into the S-shape Alex made with his strong chest and bent knees. He wrapped his well-defined arms around her shoulders and hugged her closer. His face rested against her hair. Marita felt so perfectly calm and pleasant that she fell asleep almost immediately.

Alex, on the other hand, awoke approximately every hour or so. His senses unconsciously checked for changes in the night time noise, for moving car lights, for the musky odor that accompanies a gun. When he felt that they were alone and safe, his mind took some time to calm. It was during these moments between snatched sleep that he let himself completely love the woman in his arms.

The skin on her elbows was so soft. Alex's fingertips felt rough against the supple area. The crook of her arm was even softer and gave him a thrill that shot up from his groin to his chest. With movements so slow, it looked more like he was still, Alex shifted his weight around Marita's thin body. He leaned down and captured her lips with his own. The way her mouth didn't pucker or move made it feel so gentle and smooth that he felt drunk from kissing her. Alex tried his best not to get hard, but that was impossible. After a few soft kisses, he reversed his slow movements back to his original spooning position. He pressed his cock against her rump and forced himself not to notice it when she pushed against him and arched her back.

As soon as he knew that she was awake, when her breath became fast and fluttery and her hands roamed hungrily over her own body, Alex made himself fall asleep. He counted backwards from 1000. 211 was the last number he could remember repeating to himself.

Marita huffed and tried to squirm away from Alex's grasp, but he would never let her go.

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More to come! Find out how a couple can be in love for years without ever openly acting on their desires. Find out how Marita and Alex originally met. It will all come soon in chapter 2.

But first you have to review or else I just lose interest.


	2. Chapter 2

After their return from Idaho, Marita didn't speak to Alex about anything besides the most basic needs of their work. They shared an office at the Consortium headquarters in the posh streets of uptown New York City. Their desks even faced each other close enough that if Alex stretched out his legs, he could nudge Marita's foot with his own. And yet she remained silent, alternately writing reports for her other job at the UN and shopping online for lacy bras and black, silk panties.

"Not that I have any use for them," she thought silently to herself.

Alex hated it when she ignored him. He first tried tossing pencils at her desks, but this only made her glare. Although she wouldn't speak, she seemed ready to shout. Her lips would jut out occasionally, then relax, as if the words to ream him out were on the tip of here tongue.

After a week of this deadly isolation, Alex felt heavy and depressed. He had given up brushing her legs with his feet under the desk. He had stopped sending her one lined emails, which simply read "I'm sorry." He suspected these notes made her angrier; moments after he sent them, her ring finger would stab loudly at the delete key on her computer. She never wrote him a message back.

When Alex felt he could finally no longer take such punishment, when he was almost ready to give her a little slap to put some sense in her, she finally spoke:

"I have someone I want to set you up with."

"Excuse me?" Alex said. The surprise made him swallow his coffee too quickly so it burned a welt on his tongue. Marita still averted her eyes on all points of the room (the chrysanthemum in its glass vase, a pile of quarters on the desk, the wooly carpet) . Her finger clicked spasmodically on the mouse.

"I have this friend and I want you to go on a date with her."

"I don't go on dates." Alex slid his mug away and sank down into his chair. He rocked in it so it screeched rhythmically. Marita raised a well groomed brow.

"Celibate?" she asked with venom in her voice.

"Marita…" he warned. His tone gave her a jolt of surprise. She hadn't expected him to get angry so quickly. She suspected her silent treatment was about to backfire any minute. Soon, he would feel self-righteous and that would ruin the whole week's effort to make him feel guilty about the night at the motel.

"She's cute. You'll really like her. She lived in my suite during sophomore year at college," Marita said quickly, her voice rising at the end of every sentence. She brushed her hair over her shoulder and smiled with all her teeth at Alex.

"There's no one I want to go on a date with but…"

Marita interrupted him before he could crush her again with false hopes. "Her name is Clarice. She works at a PR firm, downtown."

"PR?" Alex said with disgust. He bit down on the tip of his pencil.

"She's smart Alex, she has a Masters in communication."

He sighed and threw the pencil across the room. Marita ducked as it flew past her, although she knew he would never have aimed for her. His eyes were vacant. He crossed his arms and looked away from her. Marita twisted her hands beneath her desk.

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Alex hated it when women pretended to be dumb. He and Clarice had been waiting at the bar for their seat for almost thirty minutes and the date already felt too long. She had chosen _Au Courant_, a French-Thai fusion restaurant that seemed much hipper than Alex felt. The men wore skinny ties and the women were wearing jeans beneath their dresses. He felt much older than his 26 years and more lonely than ever.

Clarice was cute, but she looked blander as the night went on. Her yellow hair was nothing like the shocking silver, blonde that Marita was blessed with. And unlike Marita's clear blue eyes, Clarice's were too dark to be her best feature. She wore too much makeup as well, in Alex's opinion.

But all of that was nothing compared to her insipid remarks.

"I really don't know, I don't read the paper."

"I'm not sure, I like men to order for me."

"Your work sounds too complicated! I could never do that."

The last remark came after he told her he worked in a biotechnology lab, assaying genetic material to see how it could help vaccine development. It wasn't wrong to be confused by difficult science, especially if she cared to listen and learn. It was just her flirtatious declarations of all the things she couldn't do that bothered Alex. It offended him that she believed weakness would attract him, especially since he was almost positive she had to be smarter than she was letting on if she went to Harvard with Marita.

So Alex got very drunk off of straight vodka in a chilled glass that felt brittle in his fingers. Clarice talked a lot and didn't seem to mind Alex's reticence. He felt a prickling of disgust along the back of his neck as she sucked on the cherry of her cosmopolitan and tried to look sexy. Her eyes moved too quickly beneath her lazy lids.

The service was so bad that before they had even ordered, Alex was determined to break off the date. He downed a double vodka and cleared his voice.

"I bet you want to get fucked," he said loudly. His words slurred. He didn't drink often.

"Oh yeah," Clarice said with a giggle. She stuck out her bottom lip and tried to look coy, but she looked more like a pouting two-year-old.

"I bet you'd like it up the ass."

She fumbled for a moment, but quickly regained her composure. "You like it kinky?"

"I'd only do you in a threesome."

"What did you say?"

"A threesome."

"Yeah, I heard you. Just checking." Her smile had faded.

"You up for it?"

"A threesome?"

"Yeah."

"With who?" she asked with skepticism and hurt. Already he was talking about other women he wanted to sleep with on their first date.

"Marita Covarrubias."

"But she set us up!"

"Well, I'm sure as hell not fucking you unless I get to have her too."

Clarice made a sound of disgust. She grabbed her purse and sauntered out the crowded room. Her exit would have been more effective if she hadn't bumped into a waiter and wobbled on her stiletto heals.

Alex ordered another vodka from the same waiter. The waiter paused for a second.

"Hell of a pickup line," he said to Alex. Alex just shrugged and smiled, holding up his empty glass.

"I call them drop-off lines."

"Hmm, have to remember that," the waiter said as he walked away.

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A few hours later, Alex left the bar and managed to give a taxi driver Marita's address. In his dizzy state, he forgot to use the elevator and climbed the twenty flights of stairs like a mountain climber griping the railing with one hand over the other. He was puffing by the time he finally leaned his head against the clean, white door of Marita's apartment. The hall was swaying and rocking like a ship.

Inside, Marita sat on the cushioned seat of her bay window, watching the walkers below on the sidewalk. The Saturday night crowd was a sea of colorful umbrella tops in the gentle, calming rain. Marita mused to herself that they looked like atoms and molecules bumping around down there. She followed a raindrop trickling on the glass with her finger and tried to guess which direction it would flow. Down and over seemed to be the only options for the little thing.

She couldn't bring herself to go to bed. The thought made her feel sick. She held the cordless phone in her hand, but had decided to refrain calling until a later hour when Alex was more likely to be home.

"How did it come to this," Alex and Marita each thought to themselves. Only the door separated them. It was a drunken epiphany for Alex; the kind of drunken thought that seemed so true at the time, but would never be remembered the next morning. For Marita, it was her heavy eyes and twisting stomach that made her think the self-pitying statement. "How did we ever get so messed up?"

And they each returned to a moment when they first met five years ago.

Her sister's wedding had been an obscene affair. The petal smell of lilies made it difficult to breathe. But she had been happy for her sister, just sorry that so many strangers had to attend the wedding on her father's insistence. The imported champagne, Beluga caviar, even Marita's own low cut dress all seemed to be more for the benefit of these strange, serious looking men rather than for the celebration of her sister's new life.

But the way Marita's father introduced her to all of these men made it even worse. It felt as if she were up for sale the way every man with thinning hair and a cigar pressed in his lips looked her over. They measured her hips and her breasts with their eyes. They spoke to her father instead of to her, as if she were too stupid to answer any questions.

The only one who seemed to value her differently was Spender, but even now she wasn't sure if his power, greedy expression was better than the loose faces of the horny old men.

He asked her about her education as he discreetly blew smoke down at his own shoes. He asked her questions about international policy, especially concerning the strained relations between Russia and the U.S. Spender listened intently, but usually had a snide remark for her answers. He always had the urge to prove his own superior knowledge. Marita disliked this trait. She didn't like politely arguing with a sarcastic man. But anything was better than feeling every other man in the room comparing her to her ecstatic sister, parading around the room in her perfect cupcake dress.

"So I assume you didn't go to Harvard just to marry a doctor then," Spender had teased her as she watched her sister toss the bouquet. Marita realized she forgot to join the crowd of other women grabbing at the flowers.

"No. If I wanted to get married, I would have. I'm starting my masters in international relations in the fall," Marita had answered quickly.

"In my line of work, we can always use a global savvy woman."

Marita's heart had raced. She remembered wishing so hard for the simple statement to turn into a job offer.

Spender inhaled half his cigarette and exhaled the sooty remains out his nose.

"Send me your resume sometime."

Even now, Marita was embarrassed to admit to herself that she mailed him her resume later that night when she got home, even though the post-office was hours away from opening.

As she twirled her champagne in its fine, fluted glass, Spender caught her smiling in triumph. He looked over his shoulder and waved at someone discreetly.

Alex had been watching the entire conversation since it began. He knew Spender didn't talk to anyone for so long without reason. But the young woman caught his eye as well. At the time, he had simply noted she was pretty. It wasn't until years of working with her, talking to her every day, watching her accomplish so much that she became breathtakingly beautiful to him. It was not love at first sight for Alex. But it was a tingle of what was to come. At Spender's signal, he threaded his way through the crowds of people nibbling on miniature quiche to meet her.

"Marita, this is my son, Alex Krycek," Spender said as he placed a gentle hand on the small of her back so she faced the dark haired youth more fully.

"Krycek?" Marita asked before she could stop herself. It was such a tactless question, but she didn't understand how he could be Spender's son and have a different name.

"He's really not my father, he's just being a jerk," Alex had muttered as he shook her hand. Their grip was simple and firm, but Alex had noticed that had exceptionally soft skin on her palms. Marita just noted that his hands were large and sweaty. But she liked his eyes. It was an intense and intelligent stare.

"Always a smart mouth," Spender had said and grinned a malicious smile. Marita felt a little chill. "He's a good boy, works for me."

"Yes, he's one of our most valued employees," a voice had interrupted. It was her father. His well manicured hair and suit remained as impeccable as ever, but the animosity in his voice had frightened Marita. The conversation shifted away from the younger two to the older pair. Her father glared at Spender, while the smoker looked cool and unfazed. He blew a puff of smoke at her father's polished shoes.

"I congratulate you on this wedding. Very successful," Spender said as simply as if he were commenting on the weather. So thoroughly did he ignore her father's anger that even Marita felt embarrassed for him. For his part, Alex's pale skin turned a glowing red. He searched the party for anywhere else to be but standing between the two aging men.

"You know, this wedding business got me thinking. We should just marry your Marita to my Alex. Maybe then I could expect a stronger alliance and a good deal more loyalty from you. Don't they say blood runs thicker than water," Spender said. His tone was just as sarcastic as ever, but the flippant words made Marita's previous disgust with the crowd and the day boil over again. She excused herself roughly and left the room. That day everything had felt as if it were closing in on her. Even her throat felt constricted.

She found an opened French window, which led onto a balcony outside. The buzzing New York air felt so much cleaner than inside. She had rested her arms on the railing and waited until she felt the angry shakes leave her body. But she wasn't meant to be alone.

"Don't take him seriously," Alex had said behind her. Marita looked at him like he was dirt. She didn't care how pretty his face was, her how enjoyably long were his legs. At that moment, he represented everything she was trying to escape in her family.

"Whatever." They stayed silent. Alex stood behind her awkwardly. "Don't pretend you're not a part of this," she said angrily, although she knew her tirade was misdirected at him. But Alex had been a convenient target at the time.

"Part of what," Alex said with a slow, staccato rhythm to his words.

"This…Consortium of men. Doing their secret little business that no one cares about, marrying within the group like in-bred hicks."

"I wasn't born into this."

"But you're sure a part of it now, aren't you. You're just a younger version of them," she had said so meanly that she felt embarrassed right away. But Alex looked only amused. He leaned against the railing beside her.

"So you don't want in on this secret business?" he said in a taunting tone. Marita flustered for a second, before she could find an intelligible answer.

"Yes and no, I guess."

"Marita…"

"Sorry I yelled at you."

"Whatever, don't worry about it. He pisses me off too. And so does your father. They make me just as mad as you are now."

It had been the right thing to say. From that moment on, Marita trusted him. He wasn't a sycophant. She would learn much later that Alex was a walking enigma. His business was secrets and lies, but he always told her the straight truth.

"Look, I don't want to marry you. I want to work with you," he had said, although the way he chucked her beneath the chin made her heart flutter and reconsider her previous rejection. Alex saw the look; her eyes darted away, her lashes hid her expression. Even as he made his early commitment to their partnership, he had wondered if he could stay so platonic with Marita. There was a level of comfort and confidence that he normally never felt with anyone. But at the time, her smile was enough to make him forget any doubts.

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And so there they were. Marita called Alex's apartment, but when no one answered, she resisted the urge to cry. She forced herself into bed though she didn't feel sleepy at all. She watched the dark without boredom.

"He must of stayed at her place," was all she could think. Over and over, she thought about how he must be touching her. She obsessively compared her hips to Clarice's. Finally, Marita caved and buried her face into the pillow, sobbing.

Alex broke into her apartment. It worried him that her lock was so easy to pick. Anyone could come in. Even a drunk man, apparently. The room was lightless. He froze when he heard her sobs. Inside the doorway to her room, he hovered until his eyes adjusted to the dark. Slowly, he could see her body curled up all alone on the massive bed. He waited, too unsure of himself and of her to move. Alex was like a shadow.

After an hour, Marita felt all the tears leave her. She idly wondered what made people stop crying. The pillow was damp and sticky. She blinked. A slight movement at her door made her jump. Yet she calmed. Instinctively, she knew it was Alex. If her nose hadn't been stuffed up, she would have also smelled the pungent aroma of vodka on him, as far as she was from the door. Marita propped herself up on her elbows and looked at Alex.

He moved to her side at the bed. He looked down at her. Slowly she raised her hand up to his chest. He held it with his much larger, shaking hand. He caressed the length of her arm. He rubbed his face and his head against her knuckles, like a cat. He used her arm like a life rope to pull himself into bed. And they held each other through the night.

Their kisses were wet, partially from Marita's lingering tears and Alex's drunken confusion. He kissed her ear by accident all through the night, but his loving lips made Marita shudder with passion. She felt like a rubber band pulled tight. Alex felt the wonderful comfort of a soft place to rest while the alcohol wore off. No one was softer than his Marita. And no one loved him more.

"You didn't like your date?" Marita whispered to him late in the night. Alex pulled her closer to his chest. Their clothes had long since been thrown on the floor across the room.

"You're the one I want, Marita."

"Then why won't you let yourself have me."

He didn't answer her. Instead, he clutched at her hair. He could tell her what needed to be told. The fact that he was afraid of losing her would sound cliché. But he had lost a family once and he wouldn't risk that again. He would just have to love her secretly, rather than expose her as a target to his enemies. His true father hadn't thought so clearly, had obviously felt safe in the deepest woods of Siberian Russia. But his father had been a fool and they were all gone now.

"It's better to be unhappy than to be dead," Alex mumbled into Marita's hair. She didn't hear him.

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	3. Chapter 3

Despite their passionate night together, Marita and Alex hadn't yet made love. They had kissed and caressed, but Alex always held back even though he wanted it more than anything else in the world. Yet somehow, after their night together, after the disastrous date, Marita began to believe that he truly did love and want her. Knowing that, she felt more patient and aware that there it was something else holding them back. She would simply have to find that out and remove the obstruction.

"For once, I'll get to do the spying," she thought to herself with more than a little excitement.

They started out the next day in the office innocent enough, although Alex was still wearing his suit from the night before. They each tried to read only their computer screens; to avoid the electric touches beneath their desks; to speak in a normal tone that didn't quiver with double entendres. But there were always secret looks and fingers that brushed on passed files.

Why, Marita wondered. Why can't he be with me?

After work, she told him she was going to meet one of her friends for dinner. Alex nodded and said he was going to catch up on more work.

Marita didn't own a car, so she simply paid a taxi to wait across the street from the Consortium's building. She didn't have to wait long. Alex emerged only minutes after she left and he wasn't alone. An entire pack of Consortium men walked outside in the damp, April chill, with Alex tailing a few steps behind. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets and he stared at the sidewalk as if he were angry at the concrete slabs. The men talked loud enough for Marita to hear over the blare of the afternoon traffic. But Alex was silent.

"Follow that group, please," Marita directed the cab driver. The driver shook his head and warned Marita that his tip better be good. She assured him it would be worth his time.

The walking speed chase ended outside a door with a red awning which had the look of velvet, although Marita knew it couldn't be. The men didn't bother to stub out their cigarettes or cigars, but simply walked inside still smoking. Spender was among the group. Like Alex, he held himself apart, only at the front of the pack. Alex looked over both his shoulders before he stepped inside the dark doorway. Harsh flashes of light emitted from the door.

"Here's a hundred," Marita said as she threw a wadded up bill through the plastic partition of the cab. Perhaps the driver was expecting better, because he didn't thank her.

Inside, Alex felt like crawling into a hole. Anything to get away from this noisy mess of old men slobbering over trashy looking women. Spender's presence made it even worse. The old man sat across the stage from Alex, looking bored, watching the performance with detached interest. It was like going to a strip-club with his father. The dancer wore a gold lame thong and nothing else. Her breasts were cartoonishly large and swung like great pendulums. Alex tried his best to concentrate on reading the coaster through his glass. He sighed loudly, but no one could hear him over the techno beat. The old men, sans Spender, tucked hundred dollar bills in the stripper's thong.

Marita was too shocked to move from the doorway at first, until an elderly gentleman politely asked her to move out of the way so he could get inside. The waitresses wore shorts riding up their asses with suspenders, but no tops. The lights flashed purple, red, and yellow. She was the only woman fully dressed in the room.

And Alex was the youngest man there. Marita spotted him at the central stage. She shoved a chair out of her way as she marched across the floor.

"So this is why he doesn't want me. Because I don't have fake tits?" she thought to herself with the kind of furor where she could actually hear herself yelling inside her head. A waitress had to jump out of Marita's war path.

"What are you doing here?" she stated with such an angry chill that it startled the normally watchful Alex. His face turned bright red, but Marita attributed that to the lights shining in their eyes.

"Sit down."

"Fuck you Alex."

His hand grabbed her elbow and dragged her down onto the padded stool next to him. The stripper chose at that moment to bend over backwards and make kissing noises at Alex. He glanced at her from of the corner of his eye, out of surprise. But he was even more surprised to feel Marita's stinging slap hit his cheek.

"Would you settle down!"

"No! Now I get it!"

"You don't get anything."

"Yes I do. I'm not good enough. Or I'm just your Madonna, but you really want to sleep with a whore. Is that it?"

"You have everything wrong," Alex said as he took a long sip from his glass. "I _hate_ coming here. I hate these women. I hate the lights. I hate how disgusting it is to see a these women give Spender a lap dance."

The thought actually made Marita physically nauseous. She grabbed Alex's drink and took a sip. It was just water.

"Why do you come here then?" she asked with less enthusiasm than before. She couldn't bring herself to look at Alex, so she traced at a scratch in the wooden stage.

"I don't know. Sometimes I don't think you understand how the Good Old Boy system works. This is camaraderie for them. This is what they use instead of loyalty on their projects."

Marita felt the nagging sense that she had over reacted, but she still wasn't happy to find Alex in a strip club. It didn't matter if the tips were hundred dollar bills versus singles, it still felt dirty to her and she didn't like tainting her image of Alex.

"Do you believe me?" he asked. It was difficult to hear him over the thumping beat of the music. His hand reached out and covered her own on her lap.

"Alex, I love you."

He didn't respond. Marita looked up at him with a bewildered expression.

"Alex, do you love me?"

His hand squeezed tight around her fingers.

"I do."

"Then come back home with me."

"I can't."

"I don't understand. If you don't want other women and you love me, why don't you want to be with me?"

"It's not that. I…have a business trip coming up." Their heads rested together other so they could speak more clearly into each other's ears. "I'll be gone for a while."

"How long?" Marita asked, already feeling the empty dread gnawing at her stomach.

"Two months. No more. It's some intelligence work in Tunisia."

Marita didn't bother to argue with him. She had no business in spook work. She wouldn't be of any use, especially in a country like Tunisia where a woman like her was a constant offense to the locals.

"Just come home with me. You don't have to leave right away."

"What is sex going to prove to you? You already know…"

"I need it to feel like I'm with you. Because I want it. I want to be with you."

Alex didn't tell her that this was the problem. He knew that once they made love, he would never be able to deny her from himself. Once he knew what it felt like to be inside of her, he would never be able to stop. He would love her and perhaps marry her, if the Consortium allowed. There would be babies and children growing up. And that was all he needed to have everything taken away from him again.

One of the strippers climbed up the pole and hung upside down by her clenched knees. For a moment, Alex saw his mother hanging from the tree with the dead limb. No, it would never be worth it.

But he would never be entirely able to give Marita up either. Even if he swore to himself to never see her again, he knew he would eventually break that promise. If he rejected her harshly, perhaps she would come to hate him. Maybe she would marry another man. But Alex would still have to see her, only he'd be the back-door man instead of her husband. The jealousy would kill him.

None of the options sounded pleasant. He wasn't ready to leave her yet. And he didn't want anyone else to have her either. Even now, as she picked at her lip as was her nervous habit, he felt the pangs of love and jealousy over what he couldn't entirely have.

"Later Marita. Maybe when I come back."

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When Alex arrived back in the United States, the very first thing he did was call one of the technicians at the Consortium.

"Do you have the pictures?" he asked over his cell phone in a dead voice.

"Yes. We never left the post at night without being relieved. I've looked over the photographs already and sent you the most interesting ones."

"Good, slip them under my office door."

Alex retrieved them after leaving the airport almost immediately. He hadn't checked a bag.

The photos were in a manila envelope, sealed with a piece of string. He didn't yet want to look inside. His gut gave tremors of fear and guilt. Alex decided to open the file when he got to Marita's.

Marita had been practically all he could think about in Tunisia. Everywhere he missed her. He missed having someone close to talk with and having someone to hold when he was afraid at night. He missed stealing kisses from her when he leaned over her desk to explain a map or a piece of coded document.

But Alex was afraid that she hadn't missed him at all over the past two months. Their goodbye had been short and ugly; the sort of airport scene where nobody looks anyone in the eye. She had still been angry that their goodbye wasn't in the bedroom.

And so Alex approached Marita's monolith of an apartment building with some trepidation and an urge to delay their hellos. But he was a man and a soldier, he wouldn't be afraid of her or anyone.

It was too late at night to expect Marita to open the door, so Alex jimmied open the lock and used a piece of wire he kept in his leather jacket to unhook the chain from the inside. The apartment was dark except for the glowing, digital light of the coffee pot. He entered her bedroom and sat down in an overstuffed chair by the window.

Marita stirred in bed. For a sickening moment, Alex thought he saw a second figure among the sheets, but it had only been a trick of the moonlight.

"Marita," Alex whispered. She didn't wake. Alex got up and gently sat down on the edge of the bed. He shook her shoulder and called her name again. This time, shadows shifted on her eyes as she blinked. It took her a moment to recognize him in her sleepy stupor.

"Alex," was all she said as she wrapped her arms around his lean chest. Alex dragged her up into a cradle of his arms. He clutched at her and smelled her clean scent. His Marita never wore perfume. She was an uncommon, natural beauty. She kissed him on the lips. It was a chaste, searching kiss which made his insides leap.

"I'm so glad you're back."

They continued their sweet nothings. But eventually, Marita noticed the envelope. She asked what was inside. Alex sighed and handed her the documents. She unwound the string. He pulled the lamp tassel to turn on the lights. Together they looked over the glossy photos.

They were of Marita, walking in and out of her building during the early evening and at night. Some days she wore her hair in a pony tail, but most days she kept her hair down. Her face looked uniformly depressed. There was no color in her cheeks. She didn't look at passersby's or cars that nearly ran her over as she crossed the street. The pictures showed that she was blind to everything but the pavement in front of her boots.

"What are these for?" Marita asked with warranted confusion. She held the photos on the edges of the paper.

"Just checking up on you."

"You didn't trust that I'd be alone each night?"

"Marita…I wanted these pictures to show you with someone each night. And more than anything, I wanted you to be alone, waiting for me."

"Alex, you have to stop this back and forth. I need a straight answer."

He kissed her. Down he pushed her onto the bed. His pelvis ground against her body. He hardened and felt the stiff joy of sinking it against her belly. Marita let out a sigh of relief and kissed him back with equal fervor. She licked the tip of his tongue with her own. She massaged his arms and his chest with her strong fingers.

Their clothes came off in fast pieces. Their skins relished the warmth of another person to hold at night.

"I love you," Marita panted between their kisses. Alex responded the best way he could show her how he felt. He nudged her knees apart and kneeled between her legs. He entered her with tender love. Marita wrapped her arms around his neck and held him tight. They rubbed heads together.

The love making was slow at first, but gained speed. When they finished, each felt a rush of pleasure shake their bodies. Alex whimpered as he orgasmed against her neck everything he wanted to tell her, but his voice was too strained for Marita to understand.

He told her he loved her and that he would always love her. He said he would protect her. Nothing bad would happen. It was his vow. It was taking a chance, but living without her in Tunisia had been the final evidence to convince him of his need. Without Marita, he was nothing. And with her, he was happy.

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Marita woke up the next morning feeling the delicious comfort that good sex brings upon waking. But the jewelry like clatter under the sheets confused her. Alex wasn't in the room. She lifted her hands out of the blankets. A pair of handcuffs tied her wrists together. The chain rattled a metallic clink.

"What is this?" she asked aloud, still hazy from sleep. Alex stepped in the room and leaned on the doorframe.

"I have a plan."

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I guess you'll just have to read the next chapter to find out Alex's plan and what that has to do with the handcuffs. The clues are all there! Reread (and hey REVIEW) and maybe you'll find them. Think how professional motivation can coincide with the personal.

Ps. So so sorry about the grammar, repetitive words, annoying phrases and structure. I work all day, so I usually write at night when I'm much less clear and very tired. I promise to clean everything up soon. But…yawn, it's time for bed now.

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